Why junk science is a flimsy mask for prejudice

In eugenics we see how crude, questionable logic makes way for ugly politics.

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 13: Political adviser Dominic Cummings stands outside Downing Street ahead of Prime Minister Boris Johnson address to the media, after receiving permission to form the next government during an audience with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace earlier today, on December 13, 2019 in London, England. The Conservative Party have realised a decisive win in the UK General Election gaining 365 of the 650 seats available. Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the first UK winter election for nearly a century in an attempt to gain a working majority to break the parliamentary deadlock over Brexit. working majority to break the parliamentary deadlock over Brexit. He said at an early morning press conference that he would repay the trust of voters. (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

Dominic Cummings wants to bring science and technology into the heart of government. As our world is transformed by machine learning, quantum computing, phenotypic sequencing and evolutionary biology, Cummings believes the institutions of democracy are stuck, stifled by what he calls “the forces of entropy”. Ideally there would be no need “to persuade people” to “fix broken institutions”, he writes, but alas “this option is not available in politics”.

For Cummings the answer is to turn No 10 (and now No 11) into Britain’s own “Singularity Hub”, in which a “high-performance team” makes decisions on the basis of “facts and quantitative models”. The first hire for this team, Andrew Sabisky, was revealed to be more of a gadfly than a scientist, but this should not perhaps have come as a surprise. Sabisky embodies a mindset that is reshaping conservative politics around the world.